


The Visiting Moon

by tuithemoon



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: ATLA Winter Femslash Week 2021, F/F, Flower Shop Mai, I love her, Moon Spirit Yue, i cannot believe mai is canonically a flowershop girl, mai and yue are ten at the start, oh and yue does not have white hair just because, yue was born in the spirit world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuithemoon/pseuds/tuithemoon
Summary: A spirit visits Mai and stays.
Relationships: Mai/Yue (Avatar)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	The Visiting Moon

_Dark spirits walk among us_ , Mai’s mother used to say. 

They hadn’t always been here, but they smelt the blood of wild children across the cracks of the spirit world and followed the scent. If a child dared to be rebellious, to stay up past their bedtime, a dark spirit would come at night to snatch them from their parents. Little children became appetizers and teenagers were main courses. The parents would forget that they had ever had children, and the world would ignore the empty space left in a child’s bedroom.

Her mother hadn’t given her daughter much of a description apart from long, jagged claws and glowing crimson eyes, but Mai let her mind run wild, as ten-year-olds often do. She imagined vaporising bodies hidden in the shadows beneath her father’s desk, ghosts who pretended to be his colleagues in a bid to catch her. Her mother didn’t know it, but she had created a monster in Mai’s mind, and Mai wouldn’t go to sleep as easily as she had hoped. Fear doesn’t always work. Children change every generation, and the stories that once put her to bed, that taught her not to stray too far from home and to look at her feet when danger approached, would not convince her daughter to do the same.

Yes, this was certainly a story to keep children obedient, to make them go to sleep early and provide their parents with a few blissful moments of reprieve, or that is what Mai had decided. Her mother would never really let a dark spirit into the house. She would cut it into fine strips with her grandfather’s daggers the way the chefs chopped vegetables. She’d be famous: Michi, a Dark Spirit Slayer. Her mother would protect the human world and the world would owe her a favour. Everyone would shower her with gifts, and once her mother was happy, she wouldn’t shout at Mai so much. She wouldn’t mind if Mai laughed or cheered or played loudly with her friends. 

Mai held onto these hopes and prayed that they would keep the dark spirits away.

* * *

The moon had vanished. It must have come through the window. 

Summer was a cruel season in the Fire Nation. Flies often swarmed into Mai’s bedroom, buzzing to leave as quickly as they had entered and banging helplessly at the walls. Her skin would perpetually drip with sweat as if her skin was melting, and she had no choice but to leave the windows open in case the breeze came to visit her. 

(Perhaps a part of her wanted to tempt fate too.)

Mai was not asleep when the spirit stepped into her room. As soon as her mother closed the door, it was there, waiting for her to muster up the courage to meet its gaze. Mai prided herself on being brave when it counted, and she wouldn’t give up her reputation easily. 

The image of dark spirits in Mai’s head was conflicting with the being in front of her, hovering up and down at the end of her bed. The spirit was a girl who looked the same age as Mai, with silver speckles running across her black-blue skin and masses of black hair, like traces from shooting stars that had landed on her when she entered this realm. Her eyes were as dark as the night sky, pure and inquisitive and kind. Her feet finally pattered on the ground, but her robes still seemed to float in the wind. Mai had never seen such intricately designed white robes, not even during the Firelord’s coronation. There were sky blue clouds woven across both sleeves, moving across the fabric to reveal grey birds in flight. The spirit yawned, revealing pristine, neat teeth. 

She suddenly moved to the side of Mai’s bed, eerily close to her face, tilting her head as she observed her.

Now Mai could see that the spirit’s eyes were mismatched, one pupil drifting from brown to silver to blue over and over, as if she couldn’t decide what type of person she wanted to be. She was very pretty, Mai thought.

“I don’t want to be your dinner,” she said, tugging the sheets up to her neck, as if that would make the spirit go away.

The spirit chuckled instead. “I can’t eat you! That’s ridiculous.” 

“Why are you here then?”

The spirit sat down on the floor, cross-legged, leaning her chin on the edge of Mai’s bed. “You seemed lonely, Mai.”

Mai blinked at her, startled that the spirit knew her name. She smiled, and Mai slowly moved her covers away. She looked down at the spirit and returned her smile.

“What can I call you?” Mai asked.

This was apparently a puzzling question. “I don’t know which name I’m supposed to give you.” The spirit looked at her thoughtfully. “I’ve visited the Water Tribes before. They call me Yue.”

Mai had never heard of that name before. She hadn’t yet met anyone from the Water Tribes and didn’t know that Yue would have been born there in a different life. She didn’t know Fire Nation teachers lied when they said that spirits and humans were entirely disconnected, an excuse for imperial power and industrial invasions. 

“Yu – eh,” Mai sounded out. “It’s a pretty name.”

Yue beamed. “I think we’ll be good friends, if you want.”

Mai was used to having friendships bestowed upon her. That was, at least, the way it was with Azula, who deemed Mai worthy enough to spend time with. Mai didn’t particularly want to respond to Yue, to promise a commitment, but she liked the idea of friendship as a choice rather than a command.

“What are those?” Yue asked, vanishing and materialising next to Mai’s desk. She was staring at the small knives in leather sheaths Mai had asked her grandfather for.

“Throwing knives. I’m practicing.”

“Cool!” Yue seemed so amazed, as if she wasn’t some kind of all powerful spirit. She turned back to Mai. Her eyes sparkled in the dark. 

Mai had been on edge since Yue arrived, but she yawned and felt exhausted in an instance. She wordlessly lay back down in her bed, not afraid if Yue was watching her as she did so.

“You must be sleepy now. That usually happens when I'm around humans,” Yue whispered, even though Mai’s parents’ room was too far away to hear her if she shouted. “I’ll stay here for a little while and keep any nightmares away.” 

Mai’s eyes closed but Yue’s face remained in her mind. 

“Goodnight, Mai.” 

* * *

Mura didn’t like to let her nineteen-year-old niece leave the flower shop too late without a chaperone, even though she was perfectly aware that Mai could defend herself. Agni knows how many times her children came running to her, so excited that Mai had taught them how to throw knives. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to walk with you, dear? It’s getting dark.”

“Thank you, Aunt Mura, but no,” Mai said. “I’m meeting someone.”

“That lady-friend of yours?” Mura said, raising an eyebrow. Mai smiled slightly. 

Perhaps her niece believed that she was successfully hiding her new companion, but Mura often saw the mysterious girl miraculously appear as Mai was walking down the road. Mai reached down past the counter and picked up a small bunch of sakurasou that she had tied earlier with a thin sky-blue ribbon. Mura smiled to herself. She too had chosen these flowers for her husband when they were young, a symbol of long-lasting love, a promise of a beautiful future. Mai was humming that song already, the lullaby she wrote about kind spirits who protect you from bad dreams. Mai sang the tune constantly, to Mura’s children, while she worked, as she read. Mura wondered if she realised that she was humming.

Mura followed her niece to the door and watched her as she walked leisurely down the street. She felt the urge to yawn, and when she looked back to Mai, she saw that she was now walking alongside the girl who always wore beautiful white robes. Their hands were intertwined and laughter echoed in the evening.

**Author's Note:**

> i love atla wlw rarepairs and this was totally self-indulgent. hope you enjoyed it x


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